by kimbreaI really admire Regina King she is an incredible actress. I wish that I had the chance to try and become a great woman like she is. If any one has any idea of who I can contact please let me know.Comment on this...

by thawkRegina King had developed into an incredible talent. Each performance gets better and better. I certainly believe should should have been nominated for an Oscar in "Ray". No performance I've seen was better than hers in a supporting role. That Oscar should be going home with her. Her portrayal of Margie Hicks was awesome.Comment on this...

She's in town to co-star with Jamie Foxx in "Unchain My Heart: The Ray Charles Story." She also happened to be with Foxx and his sister the night of their -- ahem -- recent unpleasant disturbance at Harrah's casino. And she says it's our fault.

"It's just a corrupt li'l city," she says of it all.

Now, there are many ways to react to this. One is to shrug and say: Well, that's true.

But I'm going to choose a different response. In an interview this week with The Electronic Urban Report -- an afro-centric entertainment Web site -- King disses the city and makes all kinds of inane excuses as to how and why her posse resisted arrest at the casino after refusing to show IDs to Harrah's door security.

"According to King," EUR reports, "there was some confusion about the identities of the arresting officers. 'Personally, I know what an LAPD officer looks like,' King said. 'I don't know what a New Orleans officer looks like.' "

So that's it! I can see where she would be confused. After all, the blue uniforms and Crescent badges and holstered guns and prominent shoulder patches that say "New Orleans Police" can indeed be pretty confusing.

In the interview with EUR, King was still stoked up about the ID issue that led to the brawl and arrests. It's clear that someone -- or several people -- refused to show an ID to get into the casino. They walked past security anyway and sat at a blackjack table.

Let's review how life works in the post-9/11 era: You must carry an ID everywhere. You practically need to submit to a body cavity search just to get into the 15-items-or-less line at a grocery store these days; you sure as hell need an ID to get into a place with booze, gambling and crowds.

And it doesn't matter if you're Jamie Foxx or someone else who's Very Special. My picture is in this newspaper three times a week and I have to show an ID to get into my office building.

That's just the way it is.

Now, I suppose I could pull attitude and tell the rent-a-cops at my security desk that they are peons and I don't gotta show nuthin', but that would be . . . a lot of things.

(Another digression: The night Harrah's opened to the public, they had a big gala, at which I was a guest. A Very Special Guest. But my wife forgot her driver's license that night. She might have been a newspaper columnist's wife, but she also had to schlep herself back to the parking garage, drive home and get her license before she was allowed in.)

And one more thing. I don't want to forget my final point on this matter, which is the language Foxx reportedly used with Harrah's employees -- three low-wage women who were just doing their jobs.

As the situation escalated -- as the women pressed for IDs and the posse ignored them -- Foxx, according to my source on the scene, used racial epithets against them. Several times.

When I heard this, I wasn't sure what to make of it. So I checked out my Street Cred Guide to Urban Language -- under the chapter about when black men are allowed to call each other "nig*er" in public -- and I found the part about basketball courts and sidewalks outside of convenience stores, but there wasn't anything about casinos.

Or anything about addressing women this way at all. Ever.

Maybe these Harrah's women in their ungainly institutional uniforms and unstylish hair, who don't use the same skin care products as Regina King and don't own her kind of designer clothes, made a frumpy impression on behalf of our beloved city and didn't deserve the respect of these Hollywood stars.

Or maybe the stars seriously blew it and they ought to just take their lumps on this one and shut up about it. Why? BECAUSE THE WHOLE INCIDENT IS ON TAPE. It's a casino, people! Everything is on video. From many angles.

Take it to a jury.

What ticks me off most about the King comments are that they come from a woman who is staying in A-list accommodations, is being ferried around town in a limo, gets to skip lines, is seated at the best tables, is comped most everything and is treated with deference by everyone in town and then she and her friends get all riled up one night and suddenly it's our town's character flaw.

Uh-uh.

"It's just unfortunate," Regina King says. "But that's New Orleans. It's just a corrupt li'l city."

I'll tell you what she's right about: The special treatment the stars got when they got arrested was absolutely corrupt.

They were sprung from jail by the powers that be within minutes of their arrival at Central Lockup. Had you or I split a cop's head open with our handcuffs -- as Foxx's little sister is charged with -- you or I would have been treated to Charles Foti's infamous cheese grits the next morning, would have been shackled, stripped and deloused and sent into the general prison population in orange fatigues that make Harrah's godawful purple uniforms look downright natty.

And we would have prayed to God that a judge would show up in the morning and take mercy on our souls and let us go home.

That's what's corrupt about this story. Were they treated like regular folk, maybe they would start acting like regular folk.

by R. Jaymes Allen Regina King is a very talented actress, I admire all that she has done. God has Blessed her so very much. I give her all the props. As far as her new role in this film, I know that she continue to be as great as she always is. What a gorgeous woman she. God Bless You Ms. Regina KingComment on this...

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